"Destroy Everything You Touch"

I like it - very fun and danceable. It's very New Order-with-a-female-singer-ish and the other one I downloaded ("Sugar, Sugar") is very Jesus and Mary Chain. I like both songs but I'm kind of 80s-bands-revisited out these days..

From Mr. Mountain Goat's blog:

Nov 17 2005The Unwell and Unwily There have been about five or ten songs this year that I've listened to on repeat with that crazed and cultlike devotion known only to pop junkies. About a third of them were released this year, which makes 2005 a good year, no matter what partisans may say. My latest obsession - about which I will not write yet, other than to urge all readers to beg borrow or steal their way to a copy of it (iTunes'll lay it on you for ninety-nine cents; it's where I got mine) - is "Killamangiro" by Babyshambles. The song, according to Libertines hagiographers, is actually a leftover from that band's latter days. According to me, it's a very nearly perfect pop song, whatever its genesis - it feels effortless, breezy, and if you're an American it practically dares you to make sense of it, which for me is a bonus. That it may have some backstory only makes it more tantalizing. Why are we so blessed, to live in an age when people make songs as marvelous and magical as this, scattershot collections of fourth-generation references that can't be put back together again, sad and brilliant and witty, which then land in the marketplace like raindrops in a great ocean? Why, indeed.

Ladytron - OK, but no real need to download the whole album based on what I have heard

What you and Kate said about "Destroy everything you touch." I really liked the first four songs or so (which is all I heard for a while because I kept using it as crash music) but the rest of the album was kinda blah.

I was hoping it would be a killer from end-to-end like the most recent New Order (which I adored all but maybe two songs on), but it didn't hold up. I owe it a relisten, though, as I really liked the first serveral songs.

Ladytron's "Light And Magic" is fairly consistent end-to-end. Those unimpressed with "Destroy" might get more out of this one; at very least people should listen to "Seventeen," which gets stuck in my head lots.

Hmm. So it seems I was right to hold off on downloading the other songs. edit: or maybe I'll check out "Light and Magic" too.

I like it - very fun and danceable. It's very New Order-with-a-female-singer-ish

Exactly! I listen to it every Saturday morning on my way to school and it wakes me up and puts me in a great mood.

For the past few days, I have been listening to nothing but Irish music. I think it's the weather. My collection is pretty limited, though: a little Altan, some Solas, everything by Susan McKeown I can get my hands on. Who else should I be checking out?

Who else should I be checking out?

Mary Black is easily my favorite Irish singer.

"Killamangiro" by Babyshambles

I thought about selling my Libertines CD when I was unpacking my CDs the other week... but listening to this song right now makes me kind of glad I didn't. This is the first time I've heard babyshambles - they are better but still sound very very similar to the Libertines.

ETA: I am in full on craxy music junkie mode today. Anything else someone wants to post about that I can go spend some money on for instant gratification?

ETA the second:

they are better but still sound very very similar to the Libertines.

Re-reading Darnielle's post via Hec's post I see that this song is supposedly a Libertines song which is one reason it would sound very very similar I am guessing.

Anything else someone wants to post about that I can go spend some money on for instant gratification?

Devin Davis. Think: "If GBV listened to the Kinks rather than the Beatles." His album "Lonely People of the World Unite!" is one of my top five for 2005. Try "Giant Spiders" or "Transcendental Sports Anthem" for starters. I'll be broadcasting a live acoustic set from him this Friday.

When I think jangle, I think Phoenix in the early 90s, specifically Gin Blossoms.

My brain immediately jumps to the Paisley Underground.

I did a jangly mix not too long ago.

I too am making one for a friend; that's why I was listening to All Over The Place. My mix, however, blushes in the presence of your mix.

Places That Are Gone Tommy Keene

Do you have that from Songs From The Film? 'Cause the CD reissue is fetching a pretty penny on Amazon these days.

Ivory Tower The Long Ryders

As is some of the Long Ryders stuff.

My collection is pretty limited, though: a little Altan, some Solas, everything by Susan McKeown I can get my hands on. Who else should I be checking out?

I can't speak knowledgeably about Irish music but Mary Coughlan has a tremendous voice and Mary McPartlan's last album had a mountain of praise heaped upon it. If you can do without musical accompaniment and lyrics in English, I recommend investigating the sean nos. I'll try to upload some onto Buffistarawk, if you're interested.

Jon, I can always count on you.

From allmusic:

Devin Davis spent two years crafting Lonely People of the World, Unite! in the studio, playing just about all the instruments himself as well as writing and producing. All that time and solitary effort have paid off in a big way, because this is the kind of guitar pop record that comes out of nowhere and leaves your jaw scraping the floor in amazement, sort of like the New Pornographers' Mass Romantic or Sloan's classic One Chord to Another. Davis' songs are an exciting blend of chamber pop (horns, keyboards, lush layers of acoustic guitars), power pop (hard-hitting electric guitars, jumpy rhythms, vocal harmonies), and classic '60s pop (glimpses of the influence of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and pop-psych bands like the Move and the Easybeats). Best of all, they are suffused with an alarming amount of energy, with Davis' slightly geeky voice straining at the seams, the guitars careening wildly, and the chords and words flashing by at a blinding pace. Not too many bands these days are writing songs as hook-filled and alive as "Iron Woman," "Sandie," and "Moon Over Shark City," or as sweetly innocent and melodic as the quieter songs on the record, like "Deserted Eyeland," "Giant Spiders," and "The Choir Invisible." Davis' production touch is remarkably assured as well. He knows just when to cut the dynamics or jump them up a notch, and the record flows like an exhilarating live set. The whole record is filled with moments of head-nodding agreement with his choices, hilarious lyrics, and moments of audacity, like when he samples the Monkees' theme song ("We're the young generation and we've got nothing to say") in the boy band-dissing "Transcendental Sports Anthem," drops a perfectly blaring E Street meets Archie Shepp sax solo into "Iron Woman," or hits the accelerator halfway through the Kinks-ish barrelhouse piano rocker "Paratroopers With Amnesia," leaving your heart doing crazed jumping jacks. Lonely People of the World, Unite! is a small-scale triumph, and Devin Davis has left the competition in the dust. There are few guitar pop records of the last 20 years that are as exciting, well-constructed, and memorable as this.

Am downloading now. The internet and the instant music gratification of it all is really and seriously the coolest.